Claiming the allegations against its Saharanpur candidate Imran Masood were “unverified and distorted”, the Congress has urged the Election Commission to direct the BJP to apologise for publicly reacting to the allegations and “maligning” the party’s image.

Masood was arrested Saturday on the charge of making a hate speech against BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi.

“The commission may direct BJP to tender apology publicly for criticism of INC and its candidate(s) on unverified and distorted allegations or take any other action as may deemed appropriate by the commission,” AICC secretary K C Mittal said in a letter to EC. This comes a day after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had publicly disapproved of Masood’s comments saying they were against the party’s ideology. Mittal said BJP had violated the model code of conduct by making “distorted and unverified” statements.

“It is only to malign Congress by making distorted and unverified statement even though clause 1(2) of the general conduct of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) categorically lays down that such criticism of other parties and their workers shall be avoided,” Mittal said in his letter.